


Handled Without Care

by LadyLaddyLawdy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Extended Scene, F/M, POV Angel (BtVS), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Stream of Consciousness, shit might get fucked up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 21:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17291861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLaddyLawdy/pseuds/LadyLaddyLawdy
Summary: What was Angel thinking when he was suddenly returned from Hell?  Would he begin to heal?





	Handled Without Care

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by GigglingGrave, bless their patient heart.

He came to himself with a cry. It rang against the stone that surrounded him.

No sound could expel the exquisite pain dancing across his skin, his mind, his very soul.

Yes-

His-

His soul... sang in the face of those sensations. Memories of pain were replaced by the sound of echoes on stone, the smell of moss, the feel of some cold, rough surface scraping his knees.

He clamped his teeth down over another exclamation, hunched and breathless. But this time nothing restrained him from the empty comfort of curling in on himself. No voice cackled in his mind, reveling in his fear.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

No.

There were echoes. Vague memories... No, this was real? This...

Yes, this was real.

He was running, something lashing against his torso. Something... some _things_ , small and sharp.

There! A flash of woods - of shining gold following him. Of a... a fight... with golden light. A simple pain across his jaw and he succumbed to quiet unconsciousness.

For the first time in ages, he was allowed.

 

 

He came to himself with a high-pitched whine. He was restrained, laying face down in cuffs with one arm held high above and behind where he was strewn across the floor. The other just low enough to tuck around his tender stomach. Sound echoed around him, bouncing across stone again.

The same stone?

Whimpering, snarling, he levered himself up, yet remained suspended like a butterfly pinned to velvet; it was the best he could managed with arms pulled back. He knelt to keep them from being wrenched from their sockets. Not that it would be any worse than- than anything else. But something already was different.

It was the same stone, singing his song of pain and confusion back to him. It was the same cold sinking into his knees, the same moss filling his nose...

This place held some memory of comfort, distant and tantalizing. He found himself casting about, smelling, listening for a memory.

Then the fear and pain descended again.

He fought, bound as he was, snarling and biting and thrashing.

If he kept moving, they couldn't... they shouldn't hit the same place as reliably. Even though they always seemed to know where to aim; even though he knew each lash felt like a thousand strokes on its own.

Even though they were just memories, phantom blows, ghosts of squealing laughter, he struggled to rend his arms from their bonds.

Even though moving, he was overcome, and as he fell from his knees he let himself be swept away.

 

 

He came to himself with a gasp. His breath uneven and wheezing. His heart fluttered, though his veins were long dry. The ache of an empty heart beating was usually beyond mention here, deep in this place of wretchedness.

He could curl in over himself still, though his arms were remained held out behind him. He could feel... something there with him. Something lurking. Quiet.

He could feel it approach. It had taken on the visage of something... no, someone familiar. Someone sweet, singing to him from so far away.

He could barely hear through the ragged sound of his own breath. Breath he didn't need but for screaming, snarling. For the feeling of anything other than the pain.

The creature continued to sing as it drew near, taunting him with comfort. Then a feather-light touch sent a thousand volts through his skin, and he fought it again, cowered again. A thousand memories of other fiery touches fueled the menace in each growl.

He didn't know why.

He had stopped fighting so long ago.

But this time he fought again. Fought against hope, against that touch, against the stinging pain all around him. He fought.

And he would fight again.

 

 

He came to himself in silence. No panting or screaming, this time. No snarling.

The cold cuffs around his wrist clinked lightly. A cheery tone breaking through the fog of monotony; even elegant torment could become tedious.

His arms were lower than last... last night? Sleep? Lapse? Regardless, something had changed. Something important. Something... something...

Something upon which he could act.

He rocked forward, just enough to test the chains that bound him. They rattled cheerful to themselves, somewhere high above. Then something creaked, a groaning soured with age. His eyes snapped open, though they remained unfocused.

That groan. That was new.

That was the change.

He rocked forward, again, tilting a little further this time, and heard the groan crescendo into a squeal.

He needed more leverage. He knelt, knees too weak for standing - trepidatious but unafraid. The space where he was held... a room? It always felt different when they were near. Now, it just felt empty, as if they had been gone hours. Maybe days. Maybe if he was lucky... maybe if he was lucky, he could coax that groan from a squeal to a scream, rend the fixture from the wall (if it was a room, there had to be a wall, right?). Maybe free himself long enough to find respite elsewhere. He could follow the woods, again. Maybe...

Maybe he could finally break free.

His breath came out in ragged snarls, lips and nostrils flared like a dog in a ring. Frustration, determination, desperation, one in the same. Cold metal dug into his palms as pain and panting both crescendoed in unison with the sound from above him - one from a snarl to battle cry, one a scream as metal twisted and scraped stone.

It all came crashing down around him, and he froze. He knelt hunched around himself waiting for them to come back, to lash flesh from bone, to punish him for yet another escape attempt.

He waited.

Then he ran.

He followed something - warmth - ferreted out from the cold world around him. He followed it through tall columns with reaching arms, through wide lanes with watching eyes; he followed an unheard call over and under and around and back. He followed warmth as it doubled back and retraced its path until he found it in a vast, grand place, all eyes staring down but unseeing.

He followed it when it crossed with another, colder path. One followed the other; he followed them both. There was something threatening about this other path. Something threatening his warmth, the only warmth he had felt in eons.

 

 

He came to himself in sweat. He was standing, chains rattling cheerily beside him as he stood tall. Over a body.

He blinked, eyes focusing for the first time. There was someone else here. He was not alone.

Warmth...

He turned sharply to find it so close. It called to him, promises of quiet safety reaching out to coax him closer. It had a name, of all things. A name he knew. If only he could remember.

He staggered towards it.

If only he could reach it, he would remember. If only he could coax forth words... words from so long ago. If only he could remember how to form those long-lost words, convince his lips they could do anything but scream, he could call to it. If only he could call it, it promised to swaddle him close.

If only...

He tried desperately to form words.

If only...

There was one, just there. Some word for this feeling.

If only he could remember what it was called.

"Buffy?"


End file.
